A Whole New Level of "Speedy"

Two months ago, I became the delighted owner of a new-to-me car. Last weekend, I climbed into the passenger side and noticed a chip in the windshield. When did that happen? I’d been down my son’s gravel road, but I hadn’t heard anything. Hubby climbed in behind the wheel and had to lean to see what I was pointing at since the rear view mirror blocked it from his view. He’d driven the car a few times, too, but neither of us had heard anything hit the window.

Best to get it dealt with quickly. I called Speedy Glass and booked the car in for nine a.m. the next day. Walked in, did the paperwork, handed the nice man my car key, and settled into their waiting area with a book, expecting a half hour wait. Not five minutes later, the man returned.

“Is there another chip somewhere?” He asked. “Were you concerned about the one on the right?”

I didn’t understand his question. Were they already done?

“Follow me, I’ll show you what I mean,” he said.

I did. Another man was carefully cleaning my windshield and I was glad to see he’d removed a large splotch of stubborn bird poop. My stone chip, however, remained.

“See, this is an old one,” the first guy told me. “It’s already been repaired. By the lines around it, you can tell how big it was to begin with.”

Oh. How silly of me. How had we taken so long to notice?

I assured them the windshield had no other chips, and they assured me the repair was as good as it gets. I took comfort in my clean windshield and in knowing Hubby hadn’t realized the chip was repaired, either. I was home by ten after nine, feeling a bit ridiculous.

But not as ridiculous as I felt when I glanced in the mirror and saw that I was wearing two pairs of glasses—one on my eyes and one on the top of my head.

I’d worn my driving glasses to the shop and pushed them up to sign the form. When I sat down to wait, I pulled a different pair from my purse for reading.

Too many ironies to process. Like the fact that the glasses covering my eyes were bifocals, designed for reading on the bottom and driving on the top. They’d have served me just fine, all morning, all by themselves.

Or the fact that my last two eye check-ups confirmed I no longer need glasses for driving and MPI had removed that condition from my license. When I do wear glasses behind the wheel, it’s merely a security blanket for myself.

Or the fact that I wouldn’t have needed to leave my house at all that day, given the stone chip in my windshield had been repaired years ago.

No wonder those Speedy guys were so smiley. They probably found humor in the fact that I’m a tad… well … not so speedy. I cling to Proverbs 11:2. “…with humility comes wisdom.”

Naturally, I took a selfie modelling both pairs of glasses and shared it with my Facebook world who quickly responded with numerous comments and likes. We all appreciate knowing others do dumb things, right? My friend Gloria wrote, “Good on you for being able to laugh at yourself. We all do crazy things but then don’t want anyone to know! You help us to relax!”

To which I quite honestly replied, “Somehow I have the feeling I’m only getting warmed up.”

 

The Psychology of Eyewear

Do you have something in your life you’re convinced you need, but which you might actually be better off without?

We’re all familiar with the idea of mind over matter and how our brains play an incredibly important part in the well-being of our bodies. Pain can actually decrease with a placebo or by merely telling the patient a pain-killer is coming. The psychological hurdles that a withdrawing drug addict must leap can be far greater than the physical. If our brains are convinced we need something, our bodies have an uncanny way of cooperating with the conviction.

Apparently, this applies to our eyes as well.

For the last eight years, any observant co-worker could easily do a Terrie impersonation simply by changing their glasses every time they leave their desk, then switching back again when they sit down. Over and over, 14 times a day. And the really sad part is, both pair are bifocals: one pair for driving distance on top and reading on the bottom, the other pair for computer distance on top and reading on the bottom. The coating on both pair is wearing off, making them appear smudged and scratched. They are no longer improving my outlook on life.

So off to the optometrist I go. He checks me over thoroughly and floors me by announcing that I could actually drive without glasses if I wanted to. No kidding? With my weaker right eye covered, he showed me how I could actually see slightly better with my naked left eye than I could with the glasses I’ve been wearing!

So why do I feel so much more confident driving with my glasses on?

Then I remembered an incident from a few weeks ago. I’d been driving around town all afternoon running errands when I suddenly noticed I’d been wearing the wrong glasses the entire time! Once I knew it, I freaked out, convinced I would plow into somebody. Before I noticed, I had done fine.

“So is it just psychological?” I asked the eye doc.

“It certainly can be,” he told me. “Like a security blanket.”

Well, this news helped me choose the kind of glasses to buy and saved me the cost of a second pair. Without having to worry about driving lenses, I could focus on one pair that would work best for the bulk of my time. They’re called “office” progressives, where the largest part of the lens will be for computer distance, a smaller bottom portion for reading, and a still smaller portion at the top so I can look across a large room and clearly see who’s there—even with my weaker right eye. If this goes like I hope, I could complete my entire shift at the office without changing glasses once! 

The next day, I marched down to MPI and sure enough, passed their eye test without glasses. They removed the “corrective lenses required” restriction from my license on the spot. Then I dutifully put my glasses back on and drove away. 

Which didn’t dawn on me until hours later when I sat down to write this post. 

The new glasses should be ready in a week. Actually parting with my security blanket glasses might take a smidge longer.

Things I Hope They Invent in 2014

They put a man on the moon 45 years ago, yet we still muddle along with sub-standard, antiquated contraptions every day. Far be it from me to be demanding. I couldn’t invent a popsicle stick. But the smarter, proverbial “they” who have invented and reinvented and stood atop the smarts of those who’ve gone before could surely come up with the following devices and improve all our lives. Maybe this year.

Smarter shopping carts

Why is it when we go grocery shopping, we place all our purchases into the cart, then unload it all onto the conveyor, then load it all back into the cart, then load it into the trunk of our cars, then unload it and carry it into our kitchens? This is neither efficient nor fun.

I propose a collapsible shopping cart that fits in the trunk of your car. You put your chosen items in the cart like you do now, except they don’t come out until they’re in your kitchen. That’s because you roll the entire cart through a giant scanner that reads every product code at once, totals your bill, and you pay. You then push the cart out to your vehicle and straight into your trunk, thanks to the handy-dandy collapsible feature of the undercarriage. When you arrive home, you roll it into your kitchen and unpack. The empty cart is collapsed and stored in your vehicle until next time. No bags, no backache, no bother.

Smarter Staple Removers

An ongoing project at my City Hall job involves scanning the signed and sealed copies of by-laws and agreements and saving them to electronic files. This requires a lot of pulling out of staples prior to feeding them through the scanner, then stapling them back together afterwards. My staple-puller proves useless on thicker documents and I’ve destroyed many a fingernail. I once observed my doctor pull staples out of my post-surgery abdomen with less difficulty or discomfort.

It occurred to me the stapler has probably changed little since its invention in 1866. I suppose as the world gradually becomes paperless, staples and their removers will eventually become obsolete. Meanwhile, I’m caught in the middle with my broken, bleeding fingernails.

Smarter spectacles

I own two pairs of bifocals and switch between them four thousand times a day. Both pair are identical on the bottom half, designed for close-up reading. One pair is good for computer-distance on the top half and I wear them at my desk. The other pair’s top half is for longer distances, so I wear them for driving and pretty much everything else—which means I am generally wearing them when having a face to face conversation with someone whose face is about computer distance from mine. The person looks fuzzy unless I back up three feet, which tends to offend. But I can’t very well say “excuse me while I slip into more comfortable eye-wear.”

I know, I know. I probably need trifocals. Be quiet.

There’s got to be an invention that will give my eyes back the auto-focus God created them with so many years ago—without costing an arm and a leg per eye.

What things would you like to see invented in 2014?